"Which means?" asked Remo.
"Which means, this officer, this reactionary racist as an act of defiance against the department and his precinct mislabeled Gerd Mueller's death a murder. It was a heart attack."
"That's what I was told," said Remo. "I thought so."
"So did everyone except that racist. It was a heart attack, brought on by a knife injected into it. But you know how backward your traditional Irish cop is. Fortunately, they've got a union now and it helps enlighten them. You won't find them flying off the handle anymore. Except if it's union business."
"Guess what?" said Remo. "You are about to identify a criminal. You are about to take me to the Saxon Lords. You are going to identify a killer."
"You can't make me do that. I'm a New York, City policeman. We have union rules, you know."
Remo grabbed the lobe of Sergeant Pleskoff's right ear and twisted. It caused pain. Pleskoff smiled because the pain made him smile. Then he cried. Big tears came to his eyes.
"There's a very stiff penalty for assaulting a policeman," he gasped.
"When I find one in this remnant of a city, I promise I will not assault him."
Remo dragged the crying Sergeant Pleskoff from the stationhouse. The patrolmen behind the machine guns threatened to shoot because, in this case, it was legal.
"Don't think you're assaulting some ordinary citizen," yelled one patrolman. "That's a police officer and that's a crime. What do you think he is? Some rabbi or priest? That's a cop. There are laws against doing things to cops."
Remo noticed a large dark stain spread over the blue crotch of Sergeant Pleskoff. A New York City policeman had discovered to his horror that he was going to have to go out in the street after dark.
The night had cooled off. As soon as they were out of the stationhouse, the door bolted behind them.
"Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?" moaned Sergeant Pleskoff.
Chiun chuckled and said in Korean to Remo that he was fighting against a wave, instead of moving with it.
"I won't be the only one who drowns, Little Father," Remo said. And his voice was grim.
CHAPTER FIVE
Twisting an ear just before the tearing point is more secure than a rein. It is also a more effective information-gathering device. Keep the person who owned the ear just barely in pain-it did not have to be a lot of pain-and the person would start answering questions. On obvious lies, start the pain flowing again so that the person himself would make his body into a truth machine. It was not force that was required, but timing.
Sergeant Pleskoff, his right ear between Remo's fingers, thought the streets looked strange at night.
"This is a beat," said Remo. "You're going to walk it now."
Three black forms hovered in a doorway. A young girl called out at the door: "Ma, it's me. Let me in, you hear?"
One of the other dark forms was a young man. He held his hand to the girl's throat. In that hand, he held a cheap dime store saw with a pistol grip.
"That is a crime," whispered Remo, pointing across the darkened street.
"Yes. Bad housing is a crime against Third World peoples."
"No. No," said Remo. "You are not an economist. You are not a housing expert. You are a policeman. See. Someone is holding a saw to that girl's throat. That's your business."
"I wonder why he's doing that?"
"No. You're not a psychiatrist," said Remo and he began to twist Pleskoff's ear to the point of tearing. "Now think. What should you do?"
"Picket City Hall for jobs for young Afro-Americans?"
"No," said Remo.
"Demonstrate against racism?" said Sergeant PleskofE, between gasps of pain.
"No racism there, Sergeant Pleskoff. That's black on black," said Remo. One of the men at the door with the young girl spotted Remo, Sergeant Pleskoff, and Chiun. Apparently he did not think the trio was worth bothering about. He turned back to the door waiting for the girl's mother to open it.
"Aw, right, Peaches," said the older man at the door. It was now time for threats. "We jam de lye up Delphinia's twat. Y'heah? Now you open dat mufu doah and spread yo' beaver 'cause it muvver and daughter night. Bofe of you be pleasured for de night."
"It's apparently a double rape with probable robbery coming up and I'd say a possible murder also," Remo said. "Wouldn't you, Chiun?"
"Wouldn't I what?" asked Chiun.
"Say it's those crimes."
"A crime is a matter of law," said Chiun. "I see two men overpowering a girl. Who knows what weapon she has? No. Crime requires that I judge right and wrong and the right I know is the way to breathe and move and live. So are they right? No, they are all wrong for all of them breathe badly and move half asleep." Thus spake Oliver Wendell Chiun.
"See?" said Sergeant Pleskoff desperately.
"Arrest the men," said Remo.
"I'm one, they're two."
"You have a gun," said Remo.
"And endanger my retirement, my advancement points, my clothing allowance? They're not harming a policeman. That girl is too young to be a policeman."
"Either you use your gun on them or I use it on you," said Remo and released Sergeant Pleskoff's ear.
"Aha, you have threatened a police officer and are endangering a police officer," yelled Pleskoffi and went for his gun. His hand shot down to the black handle and closed on it and ripped the .38 Police Special with the delicious heavy lead slug, creased down the middle to make a dumdum to splatter in his attacker's face. The bullet was not only illegal for New York City policemen, it had been made illegal for warfare by the Geneva Convention. But Sergeant Pleskoffi knew he would only draw his gun in self-defense. You needed it when you left Aspen. He supported laws against handguns because he got advancement points for doing it. What difference did another law make? This was New York City. It had lots of laws, the most humanitarian laws in the country. But only one was in effect and Sergeant Pleskoff was going to enforce it now. The law of the jungle. He had been attacked, his ear had been brutalized, he had been threatened, and that FBI man who had gone bananas was going to pay for it.
But the gun seemed to float out of his hand and he was squeezing empty air. The FBI man, in the too-casual clothes for an FBI man, seemed to slide under and into the gun and then he had it. And he was offering it back, and Pleskoff took it back, and tried to kill him again and that didn't work either.
"Them or you," said Remo.
"Reasonable," said Sergeant Pleskoff, not quite sure whether this would be a proper defense before a police review board. It was just like a shooting range. Bang. The large one dropped, his head jerking like it was on a chain pulley. Bang. Bang. And he blew the spinal column out of the smaller one.
"I meant arrest them, you maniac," said Remo.
"I know," said Sergeant Pleskoff in a daze. "But I was afraid. I don't know why."
"It's okay, ma," yelled the girl and the door opened and a woman in a blue bathrobe peeked out.
"Thank the Lawd. You safe, chile?" she asked.
"De policemans, he do it," said the girl.
"God bless you, officer," yelled the woman, taking her daughter safely inside and bolting and reinforcing the locks.
A strange feeling overcame Sergeant Pleskoff. He couldn't describe it.
"Pride," said Remo. "Some cops have it."
"You know," said Pleskoff, excited. "We could get some of us down at the station house, on our off-hours, to walk the streets and do this sort of thing. In disguises, of course, so we wouldn't get reported to the commissioner. I know the old-timers used to do things like this, stop muggings and stuff, and shoot the shit out of anyone who endangers anyone else. Even if it isn't a cop. Let's get the Saxon Lords."